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Solar Cells : Very High Efficiencies Approaches

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Abbreviations

Blackbody (BB) radiation:

Radiation in equilibrium with a perfectly absorbing (black) body at a given temperature T. The spectrum and intensity of the radiation is completely determined by T.

Detailed balance:

principe that imposes a relationship between any forward and backward reaction rates.

Epitaxy:

mode of crystal growth on a cristalline substrate, where crystal orderind is continued in the growing phase.

Impact ionization:

interband electron-electron interaction whereby the excess energy of a carrier is given off to another carrier in a low lying state to promote it in a higher band of states.

Multijunction:

Photovoltaic device composed of several sub cells. Most of the time, these are series connected and have semiconductor with different band gaps to address different parts of the solar spectrum.

Photon cutting:

process by which a given photon gives two photons of lower energies (obeying of course energy conservation).

Recombination:

process by which a (photogenerated) electron-hole pair is anihilated (the excited electron returns to its fundamental state).

Shockley–Queisser limit (SQ limit):

fundamental limit on the photovoltaic conversion efficiency imposed on a single junction solar cell by the laws of physics.

Tandem:

synonyme of multijunction

Thermalization:

processes by which a system returns to thermal equilibrium

Upconversion:

process by which two photons are converted in a photon of higher energy

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Recherche et Developpement sur l’Energie Photovoltaique, Chatou, France

    Dr. Jean-François Guillemoles

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  1. Dr. Jean-François Guillemoles
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Correspondence to Jean-François Guillemoles .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Plataforma Solar de Almeria Institute of Solar Research DLR – German Aerospace Centre, Cologne, Germany

    Christoph Richter

  2. Institute of Research and Development of Photovoltaic Energy, Chatou Cedex, France

    Daniel Lincot

  3. Solar Consulting Services, Colebrook, NH, USA

    Christian A. Gueymard

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Guillemoles, JF. (2013). Solar Cells : Very High Efficiencies Approaches . In: Richter, C., Lincot, D., Gueymard, C.A. (eds) Solar Energy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5806-7_467

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